Between The Rabbit Hole and a Wormhole

science

“I promised science would be one of the main topics on this blog, so here it is. This article was released 10 days ago. But a discovery of this magnitude is worth posting no matter the place or the time. Since the laws of physics theorizes that time is merely an illusion and we live in more of a Spacetime reality. To me this discovery is a game changer, a major breakthrough after a stand still of more than a 100 years when Einstein discovered the Theory of General Relativity and Quantum Physics was established.”

Imperial College London physicists have discovered how to create matter from light – a feat thought impossible when the idea was first theorised 80 years ago.

In just one day over several cups of coffee in a tiny office in Imperial’s Blackett Physics Laboratory, three physicists worked out a relatively simple way to physically prove a theory first devised by scientists Breit and Wheeler in 1934.

Breit and Wheeler suggested that it should be possible to turn light into matter by smashing together only two particles of light (photons), to create an electron and a positron – the simplest method of turning light into matter ever predicted. The calculation was found to be theoretically sound but Breit and Wheeler said that they never expected anybody to physically demonstrate their prediction. It has never been observed in the laboratory and past experiments to test it have required the addition of massive high-energy particles.

The new research, published in Nature Photonics, shows for the first time how Breit and Wheeler’s theory could be proven in practice. This ‘photon-photon collider’, which would convert light directly into matter using technology that is already available, would be a new type of high-energy physics experiment. This experiment would recreate a process that was important in the first 100 seconds of the universe and that is also seen in gamma ray bursts, which are the biggest explosions in the universe and one of physics’ greatest unsolved mysteries.

The scientists had been investigating unrelated problems in fusion energy when they realised what they were working on could be applied to the Breit-Wheeler theory. The breakthrough was achieved in collaboration with a fellow theoretical physicist from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, who happened to be visiting Imperial.

Demonstrating the Breit-Wheeler theory would provide the final jigsaw piece of a physics puzzle which describes the simplest ways in which light and matter interact (see image in notes to editors). The six other pieces in that puzzle, including Dirac’s 1930 theory on the annihilation of electrons and positrons and Einstein’s 1905 theory on the photoelectric effect, are all associated with Nobel Prize-winning research (see image).

Professor Steve Rose from the Department of Physics at Imperial College London said: “Despite all physicists accepting the theory to be true, when Breit and Wheeler first proposed the theory, they said that they never expected it be shown in the laboratory. Today, nearly 80 years later, we prove them wrong. What was so surprising to us was the discovery of how we can create matter directly from light using the technology that we have today in the UK. As we are theorists we are now talking to others who can use our ideas to undertake this landmark experiment.”

The collider experiment that the scientists have proposed involves two key steps. First, the scientists would use an extremely powerful high-intensity laser to speed up electrons to just below the speed of light. They would then fire these electrons into a slab of gold to create a beam of photons a billion times more energetic than visible light.

The next stage of the experiment involves a tiny gold can called a hohlraum (German for ’empty room’). Scientists would fire a high-energy laser at the inner surface of this gold can, to create a thermal radiation field, generating light similar to the light emitted by stars.

They would then direct the photon beam from the first stage of the experiment through the centre of the can, causing the photons from the two sources to collide and form electrons and positrons. It would then be possible to detect the formation of the electrons and positrons when they exited the can.

Lead researcher Oliver Pike who is currently completing his PhD in plasma physics, said: “Although the theory is conceptually simple, it has been very difficult to verify experimentally. We were able to develop the idea for the collider very quickly, but the experimental design we propose can be carried out with relative ease and with existing technology. Within a few hours of looking for applications of hohlraums outside their traditional role in fusion energy research, we were astonished to find they provided the perfect conditions for creating a photon collider. The race to carry out and complete the experiment is on!”

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Greetings my fellow Echoes. This is Ninoy broadcasting from a wormhole in space. Lately my brain has been bombarded with ideas and reflections about all the things that had been happening in the surroundings of this thing called “Life”.So the urge to speak my mind no pun intended has been inevitable. That’s why I decided to create this vehicle of conversation/communication called “blog”. So a lot of stuff will be put on this table based on different interests, issues and topics that I feel passionate about.

So to give you an idea of what you might expect to read on this blog, let me tell you a thing or two about myself.

If you noticed from my opening paragraph, I used the word “wormhole”. So it’s a no brainer that science will be one of the topics to be talked about. Especially in the world of Physics and Quantum Mechanics. And just to be clear I have no degree of science education whatsoever. I’m just a fan of science. So the topic of science will be touched in the form reposting science articles from different sources that I may find interesting.

Music is my first and foremost main passion. I’m a musician and composer. I’ve been playing bass guitar for over 27 years and electric and acoustic guitar for over 25 years. In the music world I’m known as the Saint Of The Echo (Now you know where does the word “Echo” comes from) I compose in various styles of music from Electronic, Industrial, and Hard Rock and Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal being my favorite genre. If you’re interested in giving my music a try. You can go to my Soundcloud page, Last Fm , Facebook or follow me on Twitter. The links to these pages are listed on this blog.

My family is right there in the exact same place where music is when it comes to passions. So my family will be one of the topics I’ll be talking about. And my next blog post will touch the topic of my family based on recent events.

At this point you should realize how much of a geek I am. I mean Science and Music?? Come on!!. So Technology will be a topic and that may be intertwined with the science topic from time to time. But the topic related to technology that you’ll see the most will come from the realm of.. yeap.. you guessed it. Video Games. I’m a confessed, hardcore videogamer. Especially in the Xbox realm. In fact you’ll see how close my both my passions for music and video games had become.

Now you may wonder. “What’s the deal with the number 9??. Well believe it or not that’s where the spiritual/pantheistic side of me comes afloat. If you’ve never heard the term pantheistic before, I will explain it in one of the near future posts. But to give you an idea of what the number 9 means to me and to many other people. The number 9 is said to be the ruler of the laws of nature and The Universe. And I’m totally convinced that science and spirituality/philosophy share some kind of bond. A realm that science hasn’t touched yet. Or have they?? and for some reason the scientific community doesn’t want to admit it and rapidly closes the issue with the term “Pseudo-Science”. That’s also where the topic of consciousness emerges. The discussion of consciousness between the scientific community and the philosophic one is being treated like the issue of who came first…The Chicken or the Egg?? But that’s material for an entire blog post.

So as you can see this blog will not be a specialty type of blog like cooking or fashion or gardening. And by no means I am not trying to diminish the importance and the interest that a lot of people have in those type of blogs. I’m a firm believer that nothing is good or bad, better or worse, interesting or not interesting as long as somebody has a genuine and conscious interest in the topic and could do good things in their favor and in the favor of others.

So as of now, The Ninth Echo is officially open and you’re more than welcome to join me on this trip through this wormhole. A Joyride??? Maybe..Maybe not. But an very interesting ride?? To me already that’s an understatement.